Verastem, Inc., focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat cancer, announced that Hagop Youssoufian, MSc, MD, has been appointed Head of Hematology and Oncology Development. In this role, Dr. Youssoufian will oversee the clinical and regulatory development of the Company’s pipeline, including duvelisib, an investigational product candidate currently in development for hematologic malignancies, and provide overall strategic and tactical leadership to Verastem's hematology-oncology clinical programs. Dr. Youssoufian brings over 25 years of product development and commercialization experience to Verastem. In addition, Lori Kunkel, MD, and Edmund J. Pezalla, MD, MPH, have been appointed to the Clinical and Scientific Advisory Board (CSAB), and Michael Ferraresso will join the Company as Vice President, Commercial Operations. Greg I. Berk, MD, will transition to the role of Senior Advisor from Chief Medical Officer and will join the CSAB.
"We welcome Hagop to the Verastem team to lead the late-stage development of duvelisib in lymphoid malignancies," said Robert Forrester, President and Chief Executive Officer of Verastem. "Both Hagop and Lori are highly regarded leaders in oncology drug development who bring to Verastem deep experience in developing successful clinical and regulatory strategies that result in globally approved novel oncology therapies. In addition, we are now in early commercial planning and are selectively building out the team to potentially launch duvelisib following the readout of the Phase 3 DUO study in CLL. To help make this a reality, we welcome Mike from Infinity Pharmaceuticals where he was involved in the commercial strategy for duvelisib. Ed is a leading innovator in payer strategy and has extensive relationships with a variety of policy and industry groups. These individuals have an impressive track record of unlocking the value of new products that we believe will prove invaluable as we pursue future market opportunities. We believe these appointments are key additions to the Verastem leadership team and represent our commitment to advancing our lead assets, duvelisib and defactinib, through several key clinical and regulatory milestones in the coming quarters. We thank Greg for his tenure as Chief Medical Officer and look forward to his continued contributions as Senior Advisor and as a member of the CSAB."
Prior to joining Verastem, Dr. Youssoufian served most recently as Chief Medical Officer at BIND Therapeutics. Prior to BIND, he was Executive Vice President at Progenics Pharmaceuticals and President, Research & Development and Chief Medical Officer at Ziopharm Oncology. Before joining Ziopharm, Dr. Youssoufian served as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Global Clinical Sciences at Imclone Systems. Prior to Imclone, he served in leadership positions at Sanofi Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. During his career in industry, Dr. Youssoufian was involved in the development and approval of several oncology treatments, including Sprycel®, Taxotere® and Erbitux®. Dr. Youssoufian graduated from Boston College (BS, Magna Cum Laude) and the University of Massachusetts Medical School (MSc, MD). After training in Internal Medicine at Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins, he completed fellowships in Clinical Genetics at Johns Hopkins and in Hematology-Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was a Visiting Scientist at Whitehead Institute, MIT. He then served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School as Assistant Professor of Medicine and at Baylor College of Medicine as Associate Professor and Division Chief of Medical Genetics.
Dr. Kunkel has more than two decades of experience in oncology and immunology drug development and commercialization. Dr. Kunkel presently serves on the Board of Directors of Loxo Oncology, where she was previously the acting Chief Medical Officer. Prior to Loxo, she served as Chief Medical Officer at Pharmacyclics (acquired by AbbVie) and Proteolix, Inc. (acquired by Onyx Pharmaceuticals), where she contributed to the global approvals of cancer therapeutics IMBRUVICA® and Kyprolis®, respectively. Prior to that, she served as Vice President of Clinical Development at Xencor, Inc. Before these executive leadership positions, Dr. Kunkel was a clinical scientist at Genentech where she worked on the development of RITUXAN®. Additionally, as a clinical drug development special...
(All Rights Reserved)